


Should You Need Us

by Letterblade



Series: The Golden Scheme (for threesomes) [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Banter, Claude Gets Wrecked, Claude's Light Choking Kink, Dominant Edelgard and her strap-on, Double Penetration in Two Holes, Feelings Are Very Hard, Handwaved Golden Route, Held Down, Multi, Overstimulation, Sex Toys, Trans Claude von Riegan, big dick dimitri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:00:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24684253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letterblade/pseuds/Letterblade
Summary: “Claude,” Dimitri starts, “I know we have not been the best at…well, you seem to doubt that we are even friends.” Edelgardalreadylooks like she wants to kick him. “Which I cannot begrudge you for. And I understand, especially now, why you find it so difficult to trust in others—”“What Dimitri is trying, and failing, to say,” Edelgard cuts in, “is that we would like to fuck you.”“El,” Dimitri croaks, horrified.“If you would be amenable, of course,” she adds, with just a touch of grace.Claude stares at them, genuinely at a loss for words for about four or five entire seconds, then says, “Your timing is atrocious.”
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Edelgard von Hresvelg/Claude von Riegan
Series: The Golden Scheme (for threesomes) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790821
Comments: 19
Kudos: 129
Collections: FE3H Kink Meme





	Should You Need Us

**Author's Note:**

> The kinkmeme fill that ate Derdriu. Prompter asked for: _Post forbidden-fifth-route where all three of them work together to dismantle the church, the crest system, and Those Who Slither all in one go, Edelgard and Dimitri decide to do something to thank the man who managed to convince them to work together and took them off the paths of self-destruction they were on._
> 
> _aka they're going to utterly wreck claude and then put him back together_
> 
> Many thanks to my betas [mllelaurel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mllelaurel) and especially [vulpixel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpixel), you guys rock!

Claude is _tired_.

Six years. Six years since gorgeous bossy Edelgard had been unmasked as a creepy terrorist. Six years since stunning awkward Dimitri had been announced dead. Six years of wheeling, dealing, wheedling, manipulating, exploiting, researching, tracking, theorizing, conspiring, sneaking, fighting, and working himself to the bone. Six years of going around and around in circles for _hours_ with Edelgard, gently coaxing her to see that there are _maybe_ less extreme ways to accomplish her goals that would, in turn, make those accomplishments more lasting because they wouldn’t instill hatred. Six years of practically _babysitting_ the great and noble king Dimitri, slowly dismantling his delusions and reminding him how much he’d once cared for the welfare of his people, although in the end what it had taken was Claude nearly _dying_ , because Dimitri’s an idiot. Six years of frantically scrabbling for any control over the situation, baring his own soul in careful slices when they both inevitably turned on him toweringly pissed that _somebody_ would dare speak reason to them.

He’s put Edelgard and Dimitri’s hands together and watched them finally, fumblingly, figure out who they actually are to each other. Fódlan is free of the Agarthans. The church has been stripped of political power, remade under Byleth to give solace to the faithful, shelter to the needy, and protection for the Nabatean survivors. And _only_ that. The three countries have settled their borders, paid their reparations, and signed a treaty that bound them in a close union. Made a mutual pledge to rework the laws of family and nobility, dismantling the crest system and the wretched class divisions that plague most of the continent. And, with Claude dragging them through every damn step of it, a pledge to be open to trade and diplomacy with their neighbors, and to afford equal rights and protections to anybody within their borders, regardless of religion or race.

In short, he is very fucking done.

He’s caught himself looking east, more and more, especially the past year or two. And now it’s spring, a fine time to make the long flight over the mountains and across the steppe. He’s done the last of what he needs to do in the Alliance: making sure that their semblance of a government doesn’t fall apart the moment House Riegan leaves the roundtable and the richest and most populous city in the country doesn’t have _representation_ , because whatever chucklehead had drafted Leicester’s constitution didn’t account for the obvious possibility of noble houses ending. Said chucklehead being his paternal umpty-great-grandfather, of course. The Riegan family library in the ducal manse in Derdriu is a fine place to take a contemplative afternoon, with the sweeping view of the harbor and the shelves of fascinating tomes he’s already poked through, mementos of a bloodline he’s spent, overdrafted, wrung dry, and spent again.

He’s considering whether to take down the case that once held Failnaught, pride of place in this family gallery—now buried in the Holy Tomb, as bones and hearts should be, also what the _fuck_ is wrong with this damn continent—when a very large shadow fills the open door.

“Claude,” comes Edelgard’s voice, crisp and level as always, but with a quiet edge he rarely hears. “What’s this I hear about you resigning as Duke?”

It’s still something, Claude thinks as he turns, to see the two of them side by side. And _relaxed_ about it. Dimitri’s in his usual massive cloak, even in the spring seaside warmth, but there’s no king’s regalia beneath it, only plain, if well-made, traveling clothes. Only he could make the humble king schtick earnest and not an affectation. And it even shows a slice of sculpted throat _all_ the way down to the hollow at the base, which is practically scandalous for him. He somehow doesn’t dwarf Edelgard beside him, mostly because she’s throwing off a presence that could flatten the room, like always. She’s taken some wardrobe inspiration from Judith in the last year of working together in the bloody, desperate push against the Agarthans—after Claude had gotten them together to bitch about the social clout of crests and the fall of House Daphnel, just another piece of his strategy. Tight riding pants, tall boots, and a glittering gold-embroidered scarlet vest is a dangerous look on the pocket-sized Emperor. Some part of Claude wishes she’d stop.

She’s on Dimitri’s blind side. The hilt of a familiar dagger glints in her boot. Something aches gently in Claude’s chest, mostly in relief. It’s something he’s tamped down a long time ago, because on the scale of things, the fact that they are both goddamn hot and he is probably a little bit emotionally compromised by both of them did not _fucking_ matter.

“Exactly that,” he says, spreading his arms. “I’m resigning as Duke.”

“And handing it to—?” she starts, radiating disapproval.

“You have faith in Lorenz?” Dimitri asks, calm and to the point. It’s been something to see him come into his own as a politician—he’s gotten good at cutting quietly through bullshit. Sometimes, alarmingly, Claude’s own.

“I do. For what I’m giving him, absolutely.” He throws a cheeky wink at Edelgard. “You’ll like this part, Edie—he’s going to transition Leicester to a full democracy. You see, with Houses Riegan and Ordelia both resigning without fallback, a sovereign Duke Gloucester has far too much unbalanced power. The Alliance is at a tipping point: it’ll have to collapse to a monarchy or rearrange itself as a proper republic, not a council of aging mafia families.”

She blinks, eyes widening. “A democracy. From _Lorenz_.”

“I know, right? But, hey, you know what I always say. You never know who’ll surprise you with their ability to grow.”

Edelgard huffs at that, just for old time’s sake, but there’s no missing the way one little pinkie creeps out, catches Dimitri’s amongst the folds of his cloak.

“But why resign?” Dimitri asks. “You could carry this transition yourself. I would have thought, given…well.”

“That I’m a control freak?” Claude shrugs. “Growth, Dimitri. The thing is, you guys, the Agarthans, the rest—this has all been a side gig for me.” It’s a _little_ hard to keep the bitterness out of his voice, given all the sweat and blood and tears he’s put into it. “I have things to do. My own dreams.”

Edelgard had almost wrung it all out of him once. Pressing him into a corner, demanding to know what _he_ wanted, why he was going to these lengths. Now she softens a touch, if only about the eyes. “What is it, Claude?” Just a moment’s hesitation. “Please. You’ve done so much for us.”

It’s _that_ which trips him up for a moment, throat closing. He tightens his jaw, gives their hand signal for _not here, in private_. “Look at you, Princess, being so nice all of a sudden.”

“ _Claude_ ,” Edelgard snaps, sharp warning, even as her eyes track the signal.

“Is there somewhere we might take tea?” Dimitri asks politely.

“Come upstairs,” Claude says, easy again. “I’ll have something sent up. Yes, and cookies,” he adds, for Edelgard’s benefit, and she puffs out her cheeks _just_ a little, mollified.

* * *

Even once he’s checked the perimeter and the tea has arrived, it takes Claude a good ten minutes of habitual dancing around it until Dimitri looks through him with that one keen eye and he finally, wearily, against every last kicking reflex he has, gives in.

Why the fuck not? He’s done his work here. He knows both their everythings. He’s seen the portraits of Edelgard’s seven dead siblings. Talked at Dimitri when he saw nothing but ghosts. He can—let go, a bit, maybe. After making them both swear to secrecy on their very crowns, of course.

He tells them a rather more complete version than he might have planned. His struggles as a kid—well, not the transition, that’s hardly relevant. The attempted assassinations, the competition he faces for the throne, the half-sister he’d killed. He tells them of his dream, and at that point he’s jittered to his feet to pace, worked up for reasons he can’t put his finger on. It feels like a more fragile and precious thing than usual, to show to the two of them, which is—stupid, it’s stupid. He’s closer than he’s ever been. Things have gone better in Fódlan than he could possibly have imagined. Short of taking over the continent himself…

“That would have been quite difficult, given Leicester’s military resources,” Edelgard says, somehow entirely unruffled by a five-year-belated confession that he would also have liked to conquer a few things if it had proved convenient.

“I _know_ , right?” Claude plops back down in his chair, and—yes, she’s actually amused, a spark in her pretty lavender eyes. Well. Conquest has always been a hobby of hers, and she hadn’t even needed to wade through the mountain of corpses her dream would have come with. More like a small hill.

“Some goals,” Dimitri says with great care, and a fondness pretty open on his face, “are better accomplished with diplomacy. My father taught me that.” His voice still tightens at the mention of the man who burned before him all those years ago. But his eye is clear. “Yet I would have forgotten, were it not for you.”

“Okay, seriously, what is up with you two today? I’d ask who I’m really talking too, but our shady friends—”

“—are all,” Dimitri continues.

“— _terrible_ actors,” Edelgard finishes, and probably all three of them have a weary, fond smile at _that_ old spiel. “You never know who will surprise you with their ability to grow, Claude.”

“Or…” Dimitri blinks. “Should we call you—Kh—”

“Not here,” Claude says quickly, because paranoia is reflex, and also he isn’t _entirely_ sure his heart can handle Dimitri saying his other name, the name nobody’s called him in eight long years. “Not here.”

“We understand,” Edelgard says. _We_. Gods, how far they’ve come.

“We—spoke,” Dimitri says carefully. “When we got the news about you resigning. We were both worried. And—it sounds so foolish to say, in so many words, but it was then that we realized, fully realized, how much you’d done for us. How much we—I—care for you.”

“I’ve been remiss,” Edelgard says. “I should have thanked you a long time ago. For being on my side, in your own way, when I thought nobody would ever be. But I was too…well.”

“Pissy?” Claude finishes, then shrugs. “You didn’t trust me. I didn’t expect you to. I’m not exactly trustworthy.” He waves his hand in a vague encompassment of everything. “Also I rile you up constantly because I think it’s fun.”

“At least you _realize_ it,” she huffs.

“Oh, yes, it’s very much on purpose.”

“When are you leaving Fódlan?” Dimitri asks quietly, and it feels like a cold stone dropped into the teapot.

“I…” Claude swallows, because somehow this is hard to say to both of their faces together. “Soon. Maybe a week or two. My work here is done, and Father wants to retire by his jubilee, early next year. And I need to build a power base in Almyra.”

Silence settles. Dimitri, with his quietly earnest face, can’t quite hide the wistful look he gives his teacup. Edelgard’s mouth twists down at one corner, her eyes shuttering, and Claude thinks of all the scattered things Lysithea has told him through the years, all the rest he’s put together about the insurrection in Enbarr, and feels a sudden, piercing ache.

 _Would_ he see her again, when he’s won his crown and come back around to hammer at the wall from the other side? Or would she already be…

“I left affairs in Adrestia in the care of Ferdinand and Hubert while I traveled, of course,” Edelgard says delicately. “They can no doubt manage another few days. I’ll have to send word, of course.”

“As will I,” says Dimitri. “In spring, the lords of Faerghus largely tend to their own business, and the work of the crown to bolster the spring planting has already been done. I…should not be missed for at least that much time.”

Claude feels his hands curl into fists, and so plants them on his thighs to steady himself. He’s a little disgruntled, trying to hold his seat as a mount turns far too fast. Things are bubbling under his ribs that he tried to rip out of himself a _long_ time ago—their thanks was irrelevant, their esteem was irrelevant—and they _know_ , everything now, how much he’s held back even as he stuck his fingers into all their pain and trauma in the course of dragging them off their paths of destruction—

“Why?” is all he says, hoping it doesn’t sound as sharp and raw as it feels.

Dimitri looks incalculably sad for a moment. “Do you really think we care so little for you, after everything that we have done together?”

Edelgard doesn’t look like she needs to ask. Just squares herself and says, crisp and almost absurd, “I hear Derdriu is lovely to visit this time of year.”

“Well, if you want a tour,” Claude says, scattered. “I’m not exactly a native, but I do know all the best street food by now.”

* * *

They get all the best street food—or rather, Claude eats half of it, Dimitri hoovers an amount with no apparent discretion for what he’s eating, and Edelgard takes birdlike nibbles of everything. Except for the sweets, which she hogs or fights Dimitri for, to Claude’s relief. They walk the harbor in their civvies, dressed down so to as not attract a fuss, with Edelgard’s distinctive cotton-white tucked under a big floppy sun-hat that she manages to make devastatingly elegant. Claude even, after a check around, risks ducking into a hole-in-the-wall that does Almyran style kebabs over rice that smells almost like home. Dimitri, for his part, gets scammed for every coin in his pocket by the marketplace urchins and is also fascinated by the harbor seals.

Claude invites them to stay in the guest suites of the Riegan manse—it’s the gracious thing to do, and easier security-wise—and they have their luggage sent up from the inns they’d booked for the night and call it a day, pleasantly exhausted from tourism.

The next morning, Claude comes down in his shirt-sleeves to two monarchs, two friends, combed and fresh-faced even though he knows they both sleep not nearly as much as they should, taking breakfast on his patio from his slightly panicked and very helpful staff. They’re dressed down themselves, shirts and trousers, but she’s wearing delicate kid leather riding half-gloves that barely cover her wrists and palms, and he’s actually bare-handed, old burn scars exposed. Practically naked, for them.

They’ve left a third chair for him.

They’ve also ordered Almyran pine for breakfast, which Dimitri drinks without noticing and Edelgard drinks with a slightly pained expression and a lot of sugar.

“Gods, Edie,” Claude says, taking his seat. “First, honey works better if you _must_ sweeten it, which you shouldn’t. Second, you _could_ drink something you like.”

“Good morning to you too, Claude,” she says, dry as a desert, and doggedly finishes her cup, perhaps out of spite. Only to try some with honey. Dimitri starts earnestly filling the air with chatter about how well the spring planting has gone so far, and the expected results of his tax breaks to the beleaguered farmers of central and western Faerghus—and _Edelgard_ , to Claude’s surprise, is the one who says, “Dimitri, we’re on vacation.”

“Oh,” he says, caught up short and looking slightly alarmed. “I. Yes, I suppose. I’m sorry.”

“Well, those are words I never thought I’d hear from you,” Claude says, pouring himself a cup of tea. Properly _unsweetened_ , thank you. “Miss take-over-the-continent-for-fun.”

“I’ve always wanted a vacation,” Edelgard says primly, keeping her head high. “Please do compliment your cooks on their fruit tarts. I’m afraid any baker working for you would go woefully unappreciated.”

“Claude,” Dimitri puts in, having sat awkwardly for a moment with his utter failure at actual small talk. “May I assume your staff is, ah, discreet?”

Claude looks between them, eyebrows climbing, and takes the phenomenally obvious stab in the dark. “What, you’re keeping it secret? Not going to marry to bind your countries? Solidify the Fódlan Union?”

They _both_ blush on cue, which basically already makes this the best day ever. “No,” says Edelgard, in a disgruntled squeak that sounds like the way Hilda describes one of her ridiculously fluffy squooshy-faced cats when it doesn’t want to be groomed.

“That would be, ah.” Dimitri flounders. He’s pink to his _ears_ , it’s amazing. And then he actually manages to deflect. “Well, it would leave Leicester at quite a disadvantage, now wouldn’t it?”

“I am _definitely_ not marrying Lorenz,” Edelgard says.

“Aww, why not?” Claude says. “You could give him a chance—you seem to like them tall, pale, equestrian, and invested in the betterment of the people.”

“Continue this train of inquiry at great personal risk, Claude,” Edelgard says archly.

“And _I’ll_ know everything, of course,” Claude says, zig-zagging back to the actual question with glee—gods, he owes them some whiplash after last night. “This is, after all, House Riegan, and I haven’t packed my bags yet.” He lets his smile get wicked as he peppers his eggs. “All secrets are tendered to the Duke. But I’m the one who decides where they go from there. I wouldn’t recommend making out on this patio, though. Far too many lines of sight for a spyglass.”

“Everything,” Edelgard echoes, slightly alarmed, and _now_ Claude’s wondering if they banged in his guest suite last night. He knows exactly which of the staff to ask, too—is Edelgard loud, he wonders, he’d always assumed she would be if she actually let herself unwind—though that would be a very particular form of masochism, now wouldn’t it?

“Claude,” Dimitri starts, rather urgently, but then stalls out and puts a breakfast bun in his face as if it will save his soul.

“We should,” Edelgard says, quite delicate. “Speak further. In private.”

“Don’t worry, Edie,” Claude says. “I’m not going to use your adorable torrid affair that’s almost entirely my fault as leverage. Well, not unless you use what I told you yesterday against me. Then all bets are off.”

“I would _never_ ,” Dimitri blurts, horrified enough to speak with his mouth full. Edelgard, ever-composed, looks merely disdainful at the thought as Dimitri gulp-swallows. “Claude, you’re my _friend_. I know I was…cruel. To everyone, to myself, and especially to you, who deserved none of it. I will never be able to apologize enough. But—”

“I was joking, you know,” Claude says, feeling rather off-balance _again_. “I would never question your honor, Your Majesty.”

Dimitri gets that vague kicked-puppy look at the use of his title, and Claude _almost_ feels bad.

“No, you would question mine,” Edelgard says. “And rightfully so. But.” She hesitates. A small jerk of her chin in Dimitri’s direction. “It is the same for me.”

 _That_ makes something inside Claude jolt to attention, because he is fully aware that Edelgard will never apologize for _anything_. She’d rather die, she’d rather let herself get painted in the worst possible light, than say anything that could possibly sound like an apology or an excuse. Which had made mediating some things hell on earth.

So this—

He opens his mouth, and of course what comes out is, “C’mon, I deserved some of it, I was definitely winding you up,” because he is constitutionally incapable of taking that sort of thing seriously.

“Still,” says Edelgard, and sips her far-too-honeyed tea.

* * *

They retreat to the same private parlor they’d taken tea in yesterday, as the mid-morning sun stretches bright through the curtains and the ships’ bells ring, and it’s not like Claude hasn’t spent all the rest of breakfast wondering what they want to talk about. He’d made sure the treaty was utterly agnostic about who was the sitting sovereign Duke, of course, and gotten Lorenz’s word that he’d stick to it and bake as much of it as he could into the new republic, right down to a bloody thumbprint. Knowing the truth shouldn’t change their immediate courses of action for internal affairs. International affairs—well, best case, he’s about to get into a serious conversation with two future allies as the crown prince of Almyra, which is pretty sweet, all things considered.

Of course, they could just be questioning everything he’s done now that they know his motives, but really, neither of them have a leg to stand on when it comes to that. He’s still bracing himself for the worst. He’s less concerned about Dimitri, but he’s never been able to rule out the chance that Edelgard would get her hackles up about a foreign politician meddling in Fódlan’s affairs—at least he’s not a dragon? Better find out now than after he’s crowned and trying to properly negotiate, he supposes. Pre-game whatever disaster this might be.

Instead, they just look at each other for a moment, and Dimitri’s still pink to the ears, and he says, “Claude, I know we have not been the best at…well, you seem to doubt that we are even friends.” Edelgard _already_ looks like she wants to kick him. “Which I cannot begrudge you for. And I understand, especially now, why you find it so difficult to trust in others—”

“What Dimitri is trying, and failing, to say,” Edelgard cuts in, “is that we would like to fuck you.”

“ _El_ ,” Dimitri croaks, horrified.

“If you would be amenable, of course,” she adds, with just a touch of grace.

Claude stares at them, genuinely at a loss for words for about four or five entire seconds, then says, “Your timing is atrocious.”

“You could have already left,” Dimitri manages.

“If he’d already left, we wouldn’t be able to make the offer properly, now would we?” Edelgard points out dryly.

“So what,” Claude says. “A thank-you-for-managing-all-our-problems fuck? _Now?_ ”

“It would hardly have been reasonable until recently,” Edelgard starts.

“We—I,” Dimitri says, decisively, like he’s latched onto something very important, “have other ways to show our gratitude. It is not something I would give you so cheaply. Do not think I do not realize that I would never have reclaimed my crown without you. Whatever I can do to help you gain yours, and you need not even wonder if Almyra and Faerghus shall have a treaty after this—”

“You hardly did it selflessly,” Edelgard observes, practically mild. “Now that I know the truth of you, your actions make far more sense. I’d always suspected you were using me towards some end, even as you allowed me to use you and your unique perspective and skills. But—”

“Rather,” Dimitri plows on, “I wish to show how much I care for you, and truly adore you, as…no, as a friend would be rather disingenuous, given the offer, I have long found you quite attractive…”

“You guys kind of suck at this,” Claude points out.

An uncertain silence hangs. Claude feels his stomach flip-flop like it hasn’t since he was a dumb teenager messing around, too young to realize that half the time, somebody just want to see if his dick size matched their stereotype. Either one. Well, joke’s on them, his dick can be any size he wants it to be. Not like people didn’t find other ways to be asshats about that, of course.

“Claude,” Edelgard says, thoughtful. “You’re angry.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Claude says, and straight-up turns his back on them for a moment so he can scrub a hand over his face and get his shit together. “I’m not. It’s not. You just—caught me off guard.”

There are footsteps, soft in the carpet, and then Dimitri, because he is occasionally the most thoughtful damn idiot, and he _knows_ , says quietly, “It’s me,” before resting a big hand on his shoulder.

Claude, gods help him, leans back into it without thinking.

Dimitri slides his arms around him, almost excruciatingly gently, those same arms he’s seen rip men apart. He can all but envelop him like this, and there’s a moment where Claude is reflexively running the numbers on whether he stands a chance of getting out if Dimitri decided to hold him, and then Edelgard, damn her, comes around so they’re face to face again.

He almost stops being angry when he sees her face—quiet, almost worried.

“I’m…frustrated, I suppose,” he admits, rather more frankly than he’d like. “This whole situation has been…” He stops and shakes his head. “I got what I wanted. I got one of the best outcomes I could’ve hoped for. With far less bloodshed than I’d feared. You have both done things that were incredibly difficult for you because I told you to.”

Edelgard, predictably, looks annoyed, which is as least familiar territory. “You merely helped me understand how beneficial it would be in the long run.”

“Same difference,” Claude says with a shrug.

“And we have both, in different ways, been immensely frustrating,” Dimitri says. Claude has the vague impression that he can _feel_ his voice rumbling in his chest now that he’s bundled against it. It’s probably not actually true, but it’s a nice thought.

“If our offer is unwelcome,” Edelgard starts.

“No.” Claude sags a little against Dimitri, and damn it, of _course_ he can support him so easily. “That’s the bitch of the thing. It’s not.”

Edelgard looks up at him with a delicately knotted brow like he’s a puzzle, and Claude has some mad, idiot urge to be _solved_ for once.

“I could have played things differently, you know,” he says. “Waited on the sidelines, looked for a chance to take you out. Not even tried to chase down a supposedly dead guy.”

“You would not have found that chance easily,” Edelgard says, still with the puzzled look.

“But you didn’t,” Dimitri says, sounding even more bewildered. “Why are you…”

Then he goes very, very still, with a long careful breath in, then a long careful breath out. Claude can feel it against his back.

“You…cared for us,” Dimitri says, hesitant. “All this time.”

Claude lets out a small wheeze of breath like he’s been punched. Yes. _Somebody’s_ getting it.

Edelgard blinks like he’s just suggested replacing the entire palace guard with possums, and Claude abruptly, _viscerally_ realizes exactly why Dorothea had dramatically sung _Hail the mighty Denselgard_ one night when they were drinking.

“I wouldn’t exactly say _all_ this time. Not when you nearly bit my hand off.” Dimitri makes a sheepish noise behind him. “But,” he adds, with a shrug, for Edelgard’s benefit, and doesn’t finish.

The mighty Denselgard keeps blinking, looks up at Dimitri for a moment, looks back to Claude.

“Which one of you suggested this, anyway?” Claude asks, perhaps masochistically.

“I did,” Edelgard says. “I suppose you saw a brief reprise of it just now. He—well, he seemed to be having a lot of feelings about you. It was…an impulsive suggestion, I suppose. I wasn’t sure you’d be interested, but I didn’t want to let the offer go unspoken.”

“Edelgard,” Dimitri says, pointed. “ _I’ve_ noticed how much Claude flirts with you.”

Edelgard blushes, brief and bright. “That’s—well. I didn’t want to assume it was anything more than one of your many ways of bothering me.”

“It’s both?” Claude says, a little frayed. “Both is good? I like bothering you, but you’re also—well. That would be telling.”

There’s warmth in his hair, and he realizes it’s Dimitri’s breath, like he’s barely holding himself back from kissing the top of his head. “Do you,” he asks with care, “want this?”

“I dunno,” Claude says. “Will you, when we get down to it?” When, not if—shit, he’s slipping.

“Of course,” Dimitri blurts, taken aback. “Claude—of course. I would not make such an offer if I did not…” He struggles with himself only briefly. Edelgard must have done a number on him—which is impressive, she was almost as uptight as he was. “Desire you. Profoundly. I—have for some time. You are stunningly handsome, deeply kind, I…I want to adore you. Please believe me in that, at least.”

 _What’s it like to not be trusted at your word?_ Claude wants to ask, but he’s not feeling _quite_ that mean right now. _Some time?_ Gods, how much _had_ he missed? “Yeah, well, what if I’m not what you expect,” he tosses out, which is maybe not the best hint, but Dimitri’s left him off balance.

“You have shared so much with us,” Edelgard says, puzzling away. “What would still…” She pauses, one gear turning, and he sees her eyes flick over his body, once, sheepish. “There is little that would shock me, you know.”

“You never know what people will get weird about,” Claude says with a shrug.

“Please,” Dimitri says. “Whatever will bring you comfort—if you’d rather speak of it now—”

“You seem to enjoy it when we figure things out,” Edelgard says, eyes searching his. “But you must admit, this is an awkward thing to make guesses about.” Claude doesn’t bother acknowledging that in words, just jerks his chin. “If it weren’t for your beard,” she murmurs, “I might think…”

“Getting warmer, Princess,” Claude says with a laugh.

She blinks.

“Let’s say those oaths I made you two swear extend to this too. Don’t need any bullshit getting around about how I can’t sire heirs and all.”

“Of course,” Dimitri says, unhesitating, even if it’s his turn to sound utterly confused. “But that’s hardly…”

“You weren’t born as a man,” Edelgard ventures, blunt as her ax-shaft.

“That’s one way you could put it, okay, yeah,” Claude says. Well, he left himself open—he could’ve just said, but why would he do _that?_

He can _feel_ Dimitri’s surprise more than hear it, but he’s not letting go of him—if anything, he’s clutching him a bit tighter, like he’s something precious that Dimitri can’t bear to let go of, and that’s. Okay. That’s very much and also a thing he could get used to.

“Well, that changes nothing,” Edelgard says, unruffled, and gods help him, it might actually be true. Her hand, he realizes, is hovering, maybe close to touching some bit of his shoulder that Dimitri hasn’t wrapped up, like he’s magnetic.

“I would adore you no less,” Dimitri says, throaty.

Claude gives into gravity and hopes something like a wyvern will come swirling in to catch him before he hits the ground. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, okay, why not, let’s go.”

Dimitri’s arms tighten sweetly, and the warmth of his lips touches Claude’s head, dry and fond. Edelgard’s small, iron-strong hand catches in his shirt and she leans up to kiss him, almost gently.

The wind roars in his ears.

* * *

By the time Claude’s brain has caught up with his freefall, all three of them are jammed pretty awkwardly on a loveseat, trying not to strain their necks as Edelgard and Dimitri literally pass his face between them for kisses. His are alarmingly chaste and tender at first, then deep and languid, and he can barely keep his mouth off Claude even when it’s Edelgard’s turn, nuzzling through his hair and kissing his ear and neck as he gasps into her mouth. Hers are demanding, nipping at his lips when his tongue does something she doesn’t approve of, which of course just makes him do it more, and while she’s better at waiting her turn than him, it’s her hands that wander, scruffing through his hair, playing with his earring.

“Okay,” he gasps, a little dizzy, during those moments when they let him breathe. “Okay, wow, are you two just not. Going to. Each other.”

He’s facing Edelgard, more-or-less, and she gets that lovely, delicately puzzled look again. Her skin, he’s rapidly discovering, is silky-smooth, at least on her face, and he’s managed to get a hand into that equally silky coil spilling down from her cute fluffy side ponytail. “This is for you, Claude.”

“Edelgard,” Dimitri says behind him, and that huge hand traces Claude’s jaw with so much delicacy that he can barely feel it, points of warmth in his beard. “Claude, do you—do you need to be in control? I do not know if Edelgard would allow you to rule her—”

“I most certainly would not,” she says.

“You realize I’m going to take that as a challenge,” Claude says, just to see what she’ll do. Which is grab a handful of his hair and pull, not particularly gently, bowing his head just an inch.

“—but if you would be more comfortable that way,” Dimitri continues, and now the heat of his breath is hitting the nape of Claude’s neck as he talks, “whatever you wish me to do, it is yours.”

“Dimitri,” Edelgard says sternly. “Didn’t we decide we wanted to spoil him?”

“I’m still here,” Claude observes, wiggling between them.

“It would be rude not to ask,” says Dimitri.

“Well.” She puffs out her cheeks. “Claude.” And pulls his head back up. His arms are a tangle—one of them playing with Edelgard’s hair and kind of stuck there because she’s leaning on it, the other bundled up with Dimitri. “We would like to give you all the affection we have been remiss in, and all the pleasure you could ask for. May we have our way with you, or would you prefer some other arrangement?”

“I…” Claude blinks, licks his lips. Fuck, she’s still holding his hair. “That’s a pretty broad offer. Okay. We’re going to my room. If there’s stuff you want from your luggage, grab it, whatever, but it’s not like I don’t have my own accoutrements.”

“That sounds much more comfortable,” Edelgard says, “and yes, I’ll want to get a few things, but that doesn’t answer the question, Claude.”

“You’re very good at that,” Dimitri says, with no particular judgement.

“Goddamn roundtable habits,” Claude says, and then groans. “Well, now we can negotiate whatever we need to because my dick has attempted to crawl back into my body. Fuck the roundtable. Not in the fun way.”

Edelgard actually laughs and eases her grip, cupping his cheek in her hand instead. And running fingertips through his beard. He grins and tilts his head, showing it off.

“Since you’re wondering,” Claude says, “yes it’s real, we’ve got a medicine that helps with that. And other things, voice and musculature and so on. We in Almyra, I mean.”

“I can think of somebody who might want that,” Edelgard says thoughtfully. “If you’re willing to trade in it.” Claude rolls his eyes at that—of _course_ he is, does she even know him? “Though I can’t see him growing a beard any time soon.”

Claude laughs, because _he’s_ pretty sure he knows who she’s talking about, it’s not like he and Linhardt haven’t talked a few times, but Dimitri might not. “He can shave like all the rest of you Fódlan guys. Weirdos.” Or let it grow all hobo-ragged because he’s just that lazy—that would be a distressing look. “Okay, long enough, somebody kiss me again.”

Dimitri obediently tilts Claude’s head back and devours him, which doesn’t really count as a moment for him to think, really, because _damn_. The obedience has intriguing potential. So does the ravishing intensity. There’s nerves coiling in his belly, but the hot prickling kind, the sort of nerves he’d feel when he’s about to take a skydiving trust fall on his wyvern. There are only about a hundred ways just letting these two have their way with him could go wrong? Nope, maybe two hundred. Like he knows them, sure, but not like this, and some part of him _does_ really want to grab as much control from them as possible just to prove that he can, to prove that they don’t rule him—

Edelgard’s fingers trace down his throat.

“Fuckh,” he mumbles into Dimitri’s mouth, shivering deliciously.

Dimitri pulls back a bit, which is _annoying_ , so Claude is already pretty sure what answer he’s going to give them, but first—

“Don’t stop, Princess,” he says, running his tongue over his lips, putting as much bedroom voice as he can into it—which, given how thoroughly he’s just been kissed, isn’t hard.

For once she picks up _exactly_ what he’s putting down, bless her, and her steely little hand folds right over Claude’s throat. Dimitri makes some raw, indecipherable noise and stirs under him. Claude feels like his own wings are opening, a giddy rush like he hasn’t let himself get in years, and his face almost hurts with how much he’s smiling.

“I should,” Edelgard says, not letting go, “stop just for that, you know.”

“Yeah,” Claude says with a wink, “but you don’t want to.”

“ _Brat_.”

“Would you really have it any other way?”

“From you?” She sighs, but the fond light in her eyes doesn’t fade. “Much as your obedience would be sweet, no, I wouldn’t _expect_ it any other way. Here I was thinking I would simply ravish you, and now I want to smack you.”

Fuck it, Claude thinks, because they have a few days, he can boss Dimitri around later if all goes well—and that’s a hell of a thought, this being a recurring thing, might want to check himself on that. But now, more than anything—

“My room.” He licks his lips again. “Not gonna say no. Also yes. Both of you.” He absolutely _can_ make it imperious with somebody’s hand on his throat. “Spoil me. I have had a long six years and I deserve it.”

Dimitri makes a hungry noise into his ear and his hand slides low across Claude’s chest, tightens to hold him close. “If I knew the way, I would carry you,” he says, low and fervent.

“Also discretion,” Edelgard says with a sigh, and leans into kiss Claude with teeth, brief and promising, before easing her grip on his neck. “And—thank you, truly. I know this is no easy thing to trust us with.”

Claude’s chest clenches like she’s stuck her fingers right in there next to his heart, and it’s not entirely unwelcome—he might actually be flushed. “Look at you, putting the t-word in my mouth,” he says, quiet and more than a little frayed.

“Are you capable of taking anything seriously?” Dimitri asks, only there’s no edge of their old bickering—it’s almost genuine curiosity.

“Nope,” Claude says, wiggling in his lap. “It’s easier that way.”

* * *

They manage not to scamper upstairs like horny teenagers. More or less. Edelgard extracts a tidy bag from her luggage in the guest suite, and it’s not like Claude doesn’t have some guesses as to what’s in it—he might just need to compare dick collections with her. Dimitri has a hand glued to Claude’s midback, and once Edelgard has gotten what she needs, Claude just looks up at him, shrugs, and says, “Across the landing, take a right at the T, door at the end of the hall.”

Dimitri, bless him, realizes _exactly_ what he means and scoops him up without hesitation. His arms are like corded steel; he settles Claude into a princess carry, cradling him, and ducks his head to kiss him for one giddy, breath-stealing moment before striding out of the room. Edelgard, at least, has a hand free for doors. Dimitri carries Claude like he’s nothing, and the walls blur by at a very peculiar angle, and Edelgard matches stride with him despite the foot of difference, one hand latched into Claude’s trousers where his legs dangle next to her.

Claude at least has the presence of mind to say, “Wait, key, let me get it,” before Edelgard reaches for the ducal doorknob. The needle booby-trap isn’t the most reliable of things—it tends not to kick in unless somebody’s really trying to force it—but still, a hunt for an antidote would totally kill the mood. He squirms in Dimitri’s arms to fish out his keys, and there’s an awkward moment where they’re just standing in the hallway as she undoes knob and bolt both, and then they’re inside in a rush.

Dimitri, barely breaking stride, charges forward and drops Claude right onto his back on the less messy side of his rather vast bed, then follows him down to kiss him, flattening him under his weight.

“Dimhithri,” Claude manages into his mouth, then, when he pulls back, “Dimitri, I’m lying on a book.”

“Oh—sorry—”

“Where do you _sleep?_ ” Edelgard asks, perhaps to cut off Dimitri’s sheepishness as he lets Claude up and helps him rescue the book.

“Amidst knowledge,” Claude says airily. “Also I’ve been deciding what’s worth dragging with me over the Throat. It’s _hard._ Dimitri, let me get my shoes off—”

His voice croaks out as Dimitri drops to one knee. The King of Faerghus, bowing before him. Yeah, he could get used to that. “As you asked us,” Dimitri says, pulling off one shoe, and the sock for good measure. “Let us spoil you. You need do nothing today.”

Poor Edelgard keeps being the practical one, piling up books. “Will your desk do?”

“I’ll allo—aahhhoowit,” Claude says, and it would have been fake-magnanimous except that halfway through, Dimitri started rubbing his bare foot. Dear gods in all the sky. He’s slow, careful, but even with such infinite caution, the strength in those hands makes Claude’s eyes roll back in his head. Also it’s his _foot_. “Fuck,” he adds, rather smaller and shakier than he would’ve expected, sagging back on his elbows.

“Soon enough,” Edelgard says, and he hears the _thump_ of a very large number of books being dropped on his desk. Then the mattress dips behind him. Edelgard shoves herself up against him, pushing him back up to sitting where he can see the blond thatch of Dimitri bent over entrancingly as he works, and loops one hand around the base of his neck almost casually.

“Hi,” he says, perhaps inanely, and tries to at least lick a fingertip, but can’t quite reach.

“You’re,” Edelgard starts, voice just a touch soft.

“Yes, yes, I know, you’re invited to incorrige me all you want.”

“You’re sillier than I’ve seen in a long time,” she says, not sounding particularly annoyed, and nips the tip of his ear. “Happier, I dare say.”

“Well.” He gives an expansive wave of one arm. “Would be pretty hard not to be, under the circumstances.” Especially when it involves the King of Faerghus taking off his other shoe and kneading that foot too. He sags against Edelgard; she takes his weight with almost as much ease as Dimitri, all tightly packaged strength, and snakes her other arm around him, low across his belly. Practically the same thing Dimitri had done. “You _can_ touch my chest,” he points out. “Just don’t spend like six hours there. Also my nipples aren’t that sensitive so it’s not like you need to.”

She nods, and explores his throat lazily with her other hand. “Are there ways in which you don’t like to be touched?”

“Can you fuck me, you mean?” he asks, only a little dry.

“ _Well_ ,” she says, and tightens her grip by a hair. Dimitri makes a hungry noise at that and kisses the arch of one foot, and Claude lets out a shaky breath.

“In the ass, always. Up front…mm, earn it, make it worth it, also you’ll need slick. You’ll probably manage, but don’t get cocky. Also, Dimitri, you stay out of there, I’m not risking that.”

“That doesn’t extend to his tongue, I hope?” Edelgard asks.

“Oh, _that’s_ welcome any day. Playing with my dick in general, that’s fine. More than fine.”

“He’s got a talented mouth,” Edelgard says brightly, and Claude sees Dimitri’s ears burn pink. “For similar reasons. Though if you can take him in the ass, I’d be impressed.”

“Challenge accepted,” Claude says promptly, which is maybe reckless when he hasn’t seen the goods, but it’s not like he can be bigger than that one toy Hilda had given him as a joke, right?

“Claude,” Dimitri rumbles against the arch of his foot, something like raw need edging in.

“Well, I’ll enjoy watching him destroy you,” Edelgard says. “Both at once, then, if I earn it?”

“Oh, fuck me,” Claude breathes. “Yes, okay, never done that before, sounds great, might be inevitable, yes.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Dimitri says, and him being seriously considerate mixes curiously with the way he’s straight up nuzzling Claude’s calf. “If we do anything you don’t care for, anything, tell us, please.”

“Would you really expect otherwise? I’m mouthy. It is known.” He pauses, considers Edelgard’s hand on his throat, the giddy heat building in his belly. “Stop if I call for mercy. Like I would in a spar. Look, I’ve been known to start saying that it’s too much after the fifth or sixth time I come, and it’s not actually.”

Dimitri lifts his head up, eye widening, and first he stares at Claude with something like naked wonder in his face, then he trades glances with Edelgard.

“Now that is dangerous information to give us,” Edelgard says, rather closer to his ear, and Claude shivers deliciously. It’s not like the entire Burning Emperor of Revolution aura _doesn’t_ have an effect on him. It’s not like he even had a problem with the revolution, just the part where it would’ve involved the country under his protection taking it in the ass without lube, and however one would _even_ describe what it would have done to Faerghus, which isn’t something worth thinking about when he’s about to get very laid. She probably _could_ drag him to her dungeon and torture him for more dangerous information right now, and _that_ is a thought he is going to have to examine later when he is a lot less turned on, because he is seriously questioning himself. “And,” she goes on, “you seemed to say earlier that you wouldn’t say no to getting smacked.”

“I did.” Claude sucks air, giddy. “Not over scars, feels weird. Not my ears, that’s just rude. Don’t pull my hair super-hard. Oh, don’t cut off my air or choke me out on the first date—holding me is fine though.”

“Can we leave marks?” she asks, and Dimitri’s hands flex around Claude’s foot like that’s as much for him as Edelgard.

Claude grins. “I don’t even need to play Duke anymore, not on my face, but yeah, give me something to remember you by.”

“What about holding you down?” Edelgard continues.

“Fuck, yes, go for it.”

“Edelgard,” Dimitri says. “I thought we were here to give him pleasure.”

“We are,” Edelgard says. “Look at him, Dimitri. Look at the way his lips part when I do this.” The faintest squeeze of her hand, and Claude feels his face warm, his breath come fast as Dimitri’s gaze rakes over him. He squirms his hips forward—inviting, demanding, whatever. “He’s just told us that we can hold him down and fuck him while he begs us to stop. He wants us to spoil him—well, this is part of it.”

“I’m still here,” Claude says, but there’s no heat in it because it’s all gone south. _Fuck_. “Gotta say, hearing you dirty talk is something else, Princess.”

“You’re fortunate that this is, in fact, about spoiling you, and not about getting you to behave,” she says briskly, and gives him another little squeeze.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Claude says, grinning, and then he feels big hands clutching his thighs. Dimitri is surging to his feet, onto the bed, like he’d die if he doesn’t kiss Claude right now. Edelgard chooses this moment to let her hands wander, running over arms and chest and belly, and Dimitri’s still holding his thighs even as he eats his face off, and it’s dizzying. Being double-teamed like this—never happened before, he could get _high_ off this much contact—

“Dimitri, why don’t you strip?” Edelgard asks, almost casually, close to both their ears. “Show Claude what he’s in for.”

Claude makes a hungry noise into Dimitri’s mouth, and Dimitri takes just a moment to cup his face in one big hand, tender, and look into his eyes. “Claude…”

“Yeah.” Claude swallows hard, licks his lips, and runs fingers through his hair in return. “Yeah, you can fuck me up, it’s okay, also let me ogle you.”

Dimitri flushes at that, which is very nice, and looks between them, and pulls back to start fumbling with his shirt. “I, ah, apologize for the scarring, I know it can be a bit—”

“Oh, don’t even,” Claude says, flapping a hand, even as he wonders, silently, whether Edelgard had done this so that he wasn’t the first one naked. Which would’ve probably been okay, but this is nice too. Maybe he’s reading too much into it—but she _can_ be considerate, right?

Then Dimitri gets his shirt off fully and Claude stops overthinking because he’s too busy ogling as promised. Not that he hadn’t gotten a shirtless glimpse or two in the showers back at school, but that was a hand’s-breadth of height and a lot of bulk ago. Dimitri looks almost unreal, a scarred and sculpted beast in the bright mid-morning sunlight, standing there casual as anything. He crouches to get his shoes and socks, and that shows his back which—gods, yeah, it’s kind of a mess. Some of it’s old battle scars, but some of it looks like nothing less than a bullwhip.

And _then_ Dimitri stands and undoes his belt, and all that worry flies out the window because fuck it, he’s here and he’s gorgeous, alive and healing, clear-minded, opening his heart to him and Edelgard, _and_ taking off his pants. Claude, of course, for all that Dimitri’s long muscled legs are a very nice sight, has priorities, like seeing what he’s signed his ass up for. Which—

“Welp,” he says with a grin. “I’m doomed.”

* * *

Scratch _could_ get high off this much contact. Claude is definitely, giddily, high. He can’t stop smiling, except when his mouth is busy with somebody else’s, and even then, it’s bubbling in him. Edelgard and Dimitri are picking his shirt open button by button, hands and nails and mouths and teeth lighting up every bit of skin they bare. He’s usually pretty composed, he’d like to think, but it’s _them_. And there’s this thing where Dimitri’s touching him like he’s made of glass and he wants to worship every inch of him, and then Edelgard’s touching him like he’s made of steel and she wants to ruin him, and rattling between them is—well, he’s making _noises_ , heedless. Just from this. They haven’t even gotten his pants open yet and he is seriously considering grinding on Dimitri’s bare thigh.

Dimitri, gods love him, is also the one who gets confused when his shirt slides open, hand wandering in gentle bewilderment over his flat chest. “Don’t get weird,” Claude murmurs. “C’mon, kiss me or something.”

“Sorry,” Dimitri says, and ducks his head to kiss just below his collarbone.

“A spell?” Edelgard asks, cautious but curious. “Or surgery?”

“That. It’s pretty great what you can do when the church isn’t cockblocking medical advances.” Dimitri keeps pressing kisses along his shoulder, almost reverent, and the only way Claude can cope with that is by pulling his hair. Which he takes with a low and welcoming moan.

“And now that Fódlan is free of that,” Edelgard murmurs. “There is much to do when the time comes for trade.”

“No politics in bed,” Dimitri says, sounding resigned, like it’s some sort of in-joke with Edelgard.

“Always politics in bed,” Claude says—in unison with Edelgard. He laughs and puts up a hand; it takes her only a moment to high-five, which had not been the case years ago. And then she catches him by the throat again, like she’s turning his brain back off on _purpose_ , which is annoyingly hot. “Edie,” Claude manages, “does he do that thing where he touches you like you’re made of glass with you too?”

“Most of the time,” she says with a sigh, and reaches with her other hand to also tug Dimitri’s hair. “Unless you break him out of it. He means well.”

“I…you know why,” Dimitri says, ducking his head to kiss further down Claude’s belly as if in apology. Which _is_ fair, he’s seen the man literally rip limbs off. Dimitri’s full strength doesn’t sound like good pain.

“You ever actually hurt her?” Claude asks, tilting his head, though his voice is a bit thready because Edelgard is raking nails down his back. He fumbles blind, finds a thigh to grope in retaliation, and she gives the tiniest squeak.

“Not…like this.” It’s a little sheepish, and it doesn’t help that Dimitri’s started to pull Claude’s shirt out of his trousers and found the old gash on his side. A near miss from Areadhbar, healed to jagged silver by Marianne’s magic. His big hands slide around Claude’s hips, cradling him, and after enough hesitation that Claude _could_ have stopped him, he kisses that too. Not as gently, even. Dimitri of all people would know how poor sensation can be under a scar. Dimitri who touches everybody carefully because he can’t feel much through his burned hands. “Claude,” he says, low and earnest, breath tickling his bare skin. “Claude, I…”

“It’s okay, big guy,” Claude says, moving his hand from Edelgard’s thigh to Dimitri’s hair, and running it down the side of his face as he lifts his head. Tracing his lips with his thumb. “Get my pants off and finish what you started.” Dimitri takes a shaky breath, eye darkening, and kisses his thumb reverently. “Since you have such rave reviews.”

“You just can’t help taking charge of him, can you?” Edelgard says, sounding more amused than anything, and starts rearranging herself. “Even though we’re both here to ravish you.”

“How can I not? He’s so cute like this—oh, hello.” Claude hiccups as Edelgard slides her arms around his chest and _lifts_ , almost as effortless as Dimitri, the steely muscles in her small arms flexing. “Showoff,” he says, breathy, as Dimitri shimmies his pants and smallclothes down in one, and the moment she puts him back down, Edelgard whisks the last of his shirt away.

“ _Oh_ ,” Dimitri whispers, hungry, and okay, yes, all of this has Claude _burning_. “Goddess, yes, Claude—”

“Have we teased him long enough?” Edelgard asks, spidering one hand over Claude’s jaw and nipping at his ear. Dimitri’s hands slide warm up Claude’s bare legs, holding him open, and he goes easy, back arching as he spreads himself.

“ _Yes_ ,” Claude answers for him, demanding, and gets a handful of blond hair to drag his head down.

Dimitri, sprawled awkwardly on his stomach half-off the bed, falls to like Claude’s his last meal, and the wet heat of his mouth sends sparks up his spine. Claude gasps, full-throated, as he explores, as he wraps his tongue around his swollen dick. He can’t help it. Dimitri holds the tender insides of his thighs and works him with naked adoration, and it’s all he can do for a moment to keep a shaky grip in his hair.

Then Edelgard catches him by the throat and shoves him down on his back, and he loses even that. Dimitri rearranges, hiking his legs up for easier access; Edelgard takes strategic advantage of her height to straddle Claude’s waist without getting in his way.

“There you are, Princess,” Claude manages between gasps—playing with fire, he knows. “Going to join the hot, scarred, and naked club?”

She huffs, but there’s heat in her eyes. “I could destroy you without taking off a stitch, you know,” and _that’s_ a mental image right there, her in full regalia fucking him up. Not that he hasn’t had the stray thought before.

“Yeah, but do you want—to—” His voice catches as she catches both his wrists, pinning them to the mattress, then vanishes entirely as she leans down to kiss him, demanding, swallowing down the moan he makes as Dimitri does something particularly clever. Between them, now, only his lower legs are free, and he wraps them around Dimitri’s broad shoulders and revels in the skin contact. And squirms, just to try. Dimitri, holding his thighs, probably doesn’t even notice. Edelgard tightens her grip, squeezing her own thighs against his sides.

“We’ve got you,” she murmurs, breaking the kiss for a moment, and something about it stuns him, leaves feelings swooping around in his stomach along with the sheer liquid pleasure Dimitri’s pulling out of him. She takes the opportunity to cross his wrists above his head, pinning them with one hand and only slightly inhuman strength. He isn’t sure what she sees in his wide eyes, because she says, again, “We’ve got you,” and he isn’t sure whether it’s a promise or a threat.

“Okay, but you could sit on my face or something, Princess, Edie.” He licks his lips. “See how I match up to the king down there—”

“Later,” she says, pink dusting her cheeks. There’s heat in the crotch of her own tight trousers, he thinks, there against his stomach—maybe it’s wishful thinking? Later like next time? Maybe also wishful thinking—

Dimitri flicks his tongue, like he’s methodically trying all his tricks, and _that’s_ the one which gets a gasping moan, an involuntary quiver, and Edelgard’s hovering right there studying his face, and for a moment, Claude feels terrifyingly naked. “Fuck,” he breathes, and tries to turn his head away, and she catches him by the chin so he can’t even. “Fuck fuck fuck…”

There half-shadowed by the fall of her ponytail, she almost looks younger. Wonder lighting her face as she watches him come apart under Dimitri’s tongue. “Still trying to play cool,” she murmurs, not unfond, stroking his cheek. “You do like making us work for it, don’t you?”

“Seems—ahhh, fuck, Dimitri—only fair—”

Dimitri makes some incomprehensible noise, vibrating deliciously through his cunt, which might have been something sappy, and Claude just tightens his heels around his shoulders to hold him there. Not that he could if Dimitri really wanted to pick his head up and say embarrassing things, but at least he gets the hint.

“Warm him up, Dimitri,” Edelgard orders, command rolling off her along with a hint of raw desire in her voice, and Claude’s hips buck in spite of himself, grinding hard against his face—he takes it like a champ. “Make him come.”

“Talking a—big game there—Princess—” Claude’s voice is ragged as Dimitri ramps it up, as Edelgard pins him by wrists and throat and bends down to suck a mark along his collarbone. The pain spikes hot and welcome, and he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, gasping, bucking against them both. “S’pose I’ll see what you two—actually pull off— _shit_ fuck Dimitri—”

He can’t break away. Fuck, of _course_ he doesn’t want to. Edelgard gets it, at least, bears down with a spark in her eyes as he struggles. Dimitri’s finding his sweet spots fast, almost _too_ fast, and a few waves of hot wet pleasure rush through him even as he fights to keep his composure—

Edelgard waits until he’s about to exhale through his teeth and slaps him across the face, knees tightening possessively around his body. He moans, loud and ragged, jolted out of him—she hadn’t gone hard, it was more surprise than anything else, and then she catches his jaw in her hand and drags his mouth open with one thumb. Dimitri’s rough hands drag along his inner thighs as his tongue flickers, and Claude cries out, raw, no way to bite it back.

The Emperor of Adrestia drinks it in, eyes not leaving his face, and there’s a tenderness in her that makes his heart trip faster. A little smile that’s almost soft. She bends to kiss his forehead, his temple, even as she still holds his jaw and wrists. Dimitri’s making subliminal noises as he works, low and eager, like he’s trying to coax out Claude’s orgasm, and he isn’t sure how long it’s been, even, but the edge is rushing up fast. Faster than he would’ve expected. It’s been a while, sure, but _still_.

It’s not even anything in particular that tips him over. Just—too much, Dimitri pushing him inexorably—he feels the first spasm catch him and tries to hold it back with a high and desperate moan, sheer contrariness, make them work for it—so of course it just hits him harder. He shouts, hips bucking helplessly, squeezing his eyes shut against Edelgard’s gaze.

“There,” she says, soothing, as Dimitri eases up and he pants for air. She finally lets his jaw go so she can smooth hair back from his damp forehead. “That’s a nice start. Dimitri, give him a mark too. One for each time we make him come, I think.” A crack of a smile. “To remember us by.”

 _I love you_ , Claude could say, but instead he bucks his head forward, driving his throat into her hand and gagging himself on her thumb as Dimitri sucks up a mark on his inner thigh, making him shake nerveless and groan. Safer that way.

* * *

“Do you happen to have a plug of some sort?” Edelgard asks idly, one orgasm later.

Claude’s twisted on his side, Dimitri still nuzzling his oversensitized dick, one leg held high by strong hands and the rest of him a sprawl as Edelgard circles his ass with one slicked up finger—painstaking, teasingly slow. “What,” he manages between moans. “Y’don’t travel with one?”

“If I’d thought we had a chance of _this_ ,” she says, dipping a finger just inside for the third or fourth time, “I would have packed more.” He growls and tries to back onto her finger. “Patience. You know what you’re working up to.” She swats his ass with the other hand, stinging. “You should visit me in Enbarr sometime. I’ll have what I need to keep you in hand there.”

“Second drawer down in my nightstand,” Claude says, in lieu of answering _that_ —sometime, again, a future of this, it’s too much to contemplate right now. “Slide the handle right, then twist it c…ahhh…counterclockwise. To unlock.” His toes curl in midair; he grabs a double fistful of the already well-rucked coverlet. “Have fun in there.”

Edelgard, short as she is, has to leave off fingering him so she can reach it and root around, and Dimitri takes the moment to kiss up Claude’s belly, bundle him up tenderly. “Claude, you’re amazing, so handsome,” he murmurs, nonsense, chin shining with drool, and it warms his belly far more than he’d like to admit.

“That’s quite a collection,” Edelgard calls over. “That blue ceramic one is particularly lovely.”

“I know, right?” Claude quivers as Dimitri kisses his throat, over the newer mark Edelgard made, and keeps running his mouth because of who he is as a person. “I’m almost scared to fuck with it, it practically belongs on a mantlepiece.”

“The glass one too…”

“Oh, those are tougher than they look, they’re heat tempered. Put somebody through a desk with that once.”

“Claude,” Dimitri rumbles again, and kisses him, and his own taste fills his mouth.

“You going to last there, big guy?” Claude asks, in between eager kisses, sliding a hand down his body in return to find that imposing cock hard and wet-tipped. “Or do you want to take the edge off and start again?”

Dimitri makes a ragged noise, a little tremor running through him like he’s _trying_ not to buck into Claude’s hand. Edelgard, reaching out to idly run nails over his bare sculpted ass, isn’t helping. “I…I could last with a ring, I think,” he says, shaky, and his ears are straight-up red.

“You know what a cock ring is,” Claude says, delighted. “Edie, he knows what a cock ring is, I wasn’t sure he knew what _sex_ was when we met. Is this your fault?”

“Of course it is,” she says, with a trace of her own blush. “I can’t have him going off without permission, can I?”

“I knew what sex was,” Dimitri says, disgruntled. “I even knew it didn’t involve a stork. We’re not _barbarians_.”

“I’m sure we can get you up again,” Edelgard says, and this time it’s Dimitri’s ass that gets a swat. “Why don’t you go ask Claude very nicely if he’d like you to fuck his face?”

 _Yes_ , Claude almost says, but Dimitri’s ears get redder still. “Claude,” he says. “Would you—may I—”

“Here I was already going to ask if I could blow you,” Claude says, flippant, “but this is way more fun.”

“Damn it,” Dimitri says, beleaguered, and swallows hard. “I—Claude, please, let me feel your mouth. Let me—take my pleasure with you, please, that I may stay with you as long as you need later.”

“Go on,” Edelgard says, merciless.

“A little more specific, I think,” says Claude with a grin.

“Claude,” Dimitri says, even redder, and hell, he just likes saying his name, apparently. “May I—fuck your face—please?”

Claude lets his grin slide dangerous, dirty, and gives Dimitri’s cock a stroke just to watch his eye go hazy. “Oh, you’ll feel my mouth, all right,” he says, putting every bit of intent he can into it. “If you’re very sweet, I’ll let you fuck it. Roll over.”

Dimitri rolls, immediate and pliant, off to the other side of the giant playground that is the ducal bed, and Claude crawls jelly-thighed over the big prone sprawl of him and latches a hand around the base of his cock.

“How much do you care about this bedding?” Edelgard asks, as casual as she would about the weather. “He’s likely to shred something if you have him like that.”

“Fuck it,” Claude breathes, “let’s destroy it,” and wraps his lips around the head, lapping up the little bead of musky-salt just to make him _quiver_ with his tongue on the sensitive slit. Dimitri scrabbles, one hand fumbling through Claude’s hair and settling uncertain on his shoulder, the other fisting in the coverlet. _Gods_ , Claude wants to wreck him. Really, properly, figure out every way to take him apart, when he can give him his full attention without—

Edelgard’s slick fingers pry apart his cheeks where he’s on his hands and knees to suck Dimitri’s cock, and the noise he makes at that sends Dimitri groaning softly, thighs clenching like he’s about to thrust up into his mouth.

“Wha,” he manages, open-mouthed around the hot velvety head of Dimitri’s dick, because he realizes he hadn’t even seen Edelgard pull something out of the drawer.

“Hold his head, Dimitri,” she says, teasing his hole until he’s trying to back onto her finger again. “He can rule you later, since he’s so set on it.”

 _Later_ . Again. Dimitri settles his hand back in Claude’s hair; it’s a loose and careful grip, but his fingers are iron, and of course he tries to turn around to see and can’t. He _can_ pull off for air, though just barely, so of course he starts working him deeper instead, even as Edelgard dips one small finger inside and for once doesn’t stop. Dimitri’s a glorious mouthful, and every inch he works his tongue over makes him squirm hot-cold in anticipation, because that is going to be a _lot_ in his ass, and probably not the only thing in him, and _fuck_. He’s heated up and buzzing like anything, and Edelgard’s working him open so slowly he could beg.

He takes Dimitri as deep as he can instead, feels him shudder under him, and if Edelgard reaches out with her other hand to shove his head down and force Dimitri gagging-deep, well, she had an agenda and he hardly minds.

Safer that way.

* * *

Dimitri falls to pieces with little ragged noises in the back of his throat, comes with a single desperate shout and a white-knuckled fist that shreds the coverlet like tissue.

Dimitri, recovering, makes a _very_ nice mattress. Claude still isn’t being allowed to peek; instead he’s being held by the hair and kissed silly as Edelgard fingers him open and drags nails over his back. She’s still going slow. When it’s two fingers, finally, Dimitri’s recovered enough to move one hand to play with Claude’s dick, light and teasing. Claude vibrates between their hands, making raw noises into Dimitri’s mouth. They’re a glorious mess, they taste like each other, and Edelgard’s figuring out exactly how he likes to be fingered, at least in back, and he’s starting to really relax between them, blood-hot and boneless and basking in their touch. Not that he isn’t getting his own back, feeling up Dimitri’s fabulous body, which—okay, maybe he’s a _little_ jealous, but it’s nothing that can’t be expressed by squeezing his muscles until he groans.

Finally Dimitri’s wandering hand replaces Edelgard’s nails on his back, and something smooth and warm-ish nudges at his hole. “Yeah,” he says, trying not to sound _too_ pleading. “Yeah, yeah yeah, open me up…”

Dimitri pulls his head up by the hair, nuzzles down the side of his throat, and then watches him wide-eyed as Edelgard works the toy deeper. It’s not heavy, Claude thinks, nor cold—the varnished wood one, must be. So the biggest plug he’s got. Not surprising. His thighs quiver as it sinks home, and with the way Dimitri’s holding him, he’s got nowhere to hide his punched-out groan.

“I’m going to go wash my hands,” Edelgard says, and gives Claude another cursory ass-spank, jolting him around the plug and making him moan. “Dimitri, hold him so I can get at his dick and he can’t get away. Or hide his face.”

“Rude, Princess,” Claude sighs happily. “Door on the right, left’s my closet.”

Dimitri blinks, muzzy, and cradles the back of Claude’s neck in one careful hand. “Do you want to hide?” he asks softly.

“Yeah, probably,” Claude says, and licks his nose because it’s right there. Dimitri’s face scrunches up for a moment in ridiculously adorable bewilderment, and he actually giggles. “I also want you to stop me, that’s okay, like I said, fuck me up.”

“Oh,” Dimitri breathes, like something has finally clicked, and leans in to kiss his temple. His _eyelid_ , for fuck’s sake, excruciatingly tender, and Claude feels his face heat, makes some tiny noise he can’t account for.

Then he moves, still languid from orgasm, and it’s like a hard gust of rising wind catching him in flight, inexorable. Claude banks into it, fighting for control with a reckless grin, and Dimitri takes it from him with devastating ease. He’s gentle, almost lazy, even as he wrestles him around with his back to his chest.

There’s a soft noise of approval from the door to the washroom, and Claude manages to pick his head up enough to see Edelgard standing there, watching with an unexpectedly tender expression on her face as he squirms against Dimitri. He’s splayed on his back across that big chest, with Dimitri’s arms locked around his chest and holding his own arms helplessly out of the way, and then there’s one steely leg clamped over his thigh, then the other, spreading him open with almost no room to move.

Claude bucks once, twice, hard. Pants and licks his lips. The hold’s clenching him hard around the plug, and he shudders deliciously. The spike of adrenaline through the sex-haze is like a drug, and keeping his head up is a bit of a strain, but he does it because Edelgard is right _there_ and otherwise he’s staring at the ceiling like a dweeb.

Also Edelgard is taking off her pants.

He _could_ be a gentleman and try not to ogle, but she _is_ doing it right in his line of sight, so: fuck it. It’s not like she’s making a show of it, but pretty bare Edelgard legs, solid muscle flexing in her thighs as she stands back up to drop her trousers on a chair, are a show regardless.

There’s also a pair of scars, perfectly symmetrical, thin and white, running down her thighs. Old enough that all her war-packed muscle pulls them this way and that.

Much like the whip marks on Dimitri’s back: forget it. _She’s_ here and alive and happy, which had felt even more touch and go than him for a while, and Claude wiggles his eyebrows at her. “You going to get over here, Edie?”

“Don’t get cocky,” she says, warm and fond, and goes instead to her little bag, lying somewhere on the bed. Apparently she’s going to lose one thing at a time—well, ruffle-necked shirt and smallclothes is quite a look on her. “Let’s see…oh, good, I did pack it.”

“Would be terrible if you forgot your dick,” Claude says with a breathy laugh.

Dimitri makes a noise that isn’t quite a word, and there’s warmth in his cheek where Claude’s head rests. _That’s_ his out, he thinks, dimly endeared. Nothing stopping him from pounding Dimitri’s face in with a nice headbutt, squiggling out that way, but just plain old struggling is getting him no and where. “So you _did_ fuck in my guest suite last night,” he says instead.

“Do you need to ask us that, Duke Riegan?” Edelgard shoots back comfortably, and does come over at last, sliding one hand up Claude’s inner thigh to press on the bite marks Dimitri’s left behind. Claude makes hungry noises and tries to grind down against her, but he can’t do much more than wiggle and it’s pretty great.

Edelgard tosses her ponytail over her shoulder and scoots up on the bed, bending down to kiss each mark in turn, and Claude’s breath hitches. Lavender eyes peer up at him, and Dimitri squeezes him oh-so-gently, and he pants open-mouthed and feels something overwarm rattling around in his chest.

“Let’s see,” Edelgard murmurs, so close he can almost feel the heat of her breath against him, and there’s a faint crackle, then a thrum as she shakes something violently in one hand.

“Oh fuck,” Claude blurts. “Oh, you have one of _those_ , holy shit, I’ve heard about those.”

“Ever felt one?” She keeps shaking. He can glimpse it in her hand, sort of, a brass orb that fits tidily in her palm, marked with sigils and lightning bolts. It’s a tiny captive spell: agitated, it rattles the sphere it’s bound in. He only sort of understands the principles—Fódlan magic has always eluded him—but Dorothea had shown him hers once. The vibration in his hand had been intriguing and alarming in equal measure.

“Not properly—never got around to buying one—” He struggles happily against Dimitri, trying and utterly failing to close his legs and hide himself.

“Well, they were invented in Adrestia,” she says, undeniably smug, “so it shall be my pleasure to introduce you.”

With that, she slides it gently under his dick.

The first thrum of sensation _stuns_ him. He realizes that the loud moan echoing around the bedchamber came from him about when he has to breathe. He arches for freedom so hard he feels his hip pop pleasantly, feet kicking against the mattress. It’s like nothing he’s felt before, the pleasure from it feels nothing like the pleasure from tongue and fingers, and for a moment he’s panting and biting back his moans as he tries to analyze it—

Then he’s yelling again, squirming, because it isn’t _stopping_. Which is one thing to know and another thing to feel, thrumming away against the sensitive underside of his dick until his thighs are quivering, until he’s shaking against Dimitri, until he’s grinding what little he can grind like a man possessed.

“Shit, Edie, that’s—give me a moment—”

“Do you mean that?” she asks, head tilted, and he can’t answer yes. He can’t. He kind of can’t stand it and also kind of wants it to last forever, and he finally manages to shake his head and try to bump a heel against her so she’ll keep at it.

“Saints,” Dimitri murmurs, like he’s in genuine awe. Edelgard’s other hand wanders, feeling him up, making a few cursory tweaks at his nipples which barely even register amidst the desperate, buzzing pleasure crawling up his spine. She’s moving it with him, pressing it harder against him in brief surges of overwhelming sensation—sometimes lower, lighter on his dick but teasing his entrance with a deep thrum that makes him _ache_. For a few moments, she slides it down far enough to catch the base of the plug, rattling it inside him with a rather alarming noise, and he quakes in Dimitri’s arms.

It’s too much, it’s going to be too much any moment now, and the next time she presses it against his dick, he grinds against it, hard, like he’s fighting it, fighting himself—and it comes faster than he expected, a teeth-rattling orgasm howling through him, amplified as he clenches around the plug—the orb feels like it’s _burning_ as it keeps thrumming against him—

“Too much too much too much,” he gasps, and isn’t even sure whether he means it—and Edelgard palms it entirely, leaving him buzzing and bewildered in its absence, and replaces it with her tongue.

His open-throated wail echoes off the high painted ceiling.

His whole cunt’s throbbing, a raw nerve, and the wet heat of her mouth is a soft, devastating contrast. It takes him a long, long moment to catch his breath, settle trembling in Dimitri’s unyielding grip, manage to look down at the Emperor of Adrestia, the mighty Denselgard, eyes hazed closed and little stray wisps of corn-silk white on her forehead as she wraps her lips around his dick.

Then, right against his curls, she says, “Recovered enough?”

A quick shake of the orb is all the warning he gets before she lifts her head and puts it back on his dick.

There’s no use pretending he doesn’t scream at that. No getting away. He’s in some crazy white-hot space beyond just building to an orgasm, there’s nothing but pleasure—she’s sucking a new mark on his hip even as Dimitri puts one high on his neck, hot pain in unison—he isn’t sure how long it is until he’s begging for a break again, and this time she doesn’t give it to him. Not right away. Not until he howls, and she pulls the thing away and laps at him until he’s making soft broken noises that he barely recognizes.

Then it’s back again, and her smile as she lifts her head is tiny, wicked, her eyes bright as she looks right through him, and he legitimately isn’t sure he wouldn’t do anything she told him to right now. She slides it around his dick, down to thrum against his hole, and his whole body clenches, and whatever thin resolve he had left somewhere cracks.

“Fuck, fuck fuck, just—give me a—get _in_ there, one of you, fine, you fucking earned it—” His voice breaks as Edelgard gives another little push on the orb, a surge of sensation, and looks up at him with just a touch of uncertainty. He struggles against Dimitri, trying to reach her. “Put your fingers in my mouth then fuck me, please, come on!”

After what feels like an eternity and can’t be more than a few seconds, she pulls the orb away. Leans in to kiss his dick, tender, making him whine. Then reaches up to shove three fingers deep in his mouth, and Dimitri kisses his temple as he blissfully gags, getting them wet.

Then, fucking _finally_ , she slides one slim finger inside him. Curls against the best spot with unerring aim, and he chokes out a cry. The extra pressure from the plug is really something—gods, with Dimitri and whatever dick Edie’s packing in that sex purse of hers in him at once—

“Fuck,” Edelgard breathes, fervent. It’s almost as awestruck as the faint nonsense Dimitri is still murmuring in his ear from time to time. She shifts a little, and he realizes her other hand is nowhere to be seen now—is she playing with herself? He makes some noise of yearning, wriggles against Dimitri.

There’s stirrings of interest against his ass, he realizes. Edelgard was right to be so confident.

“I want to sit on your face,” she says, and _her_ voice is frayed around the edges. _Her_ eyes are heated.

“Goddamn, yes, get up here,” he babbles, licking his lips. “Just—don’t leave me—”

“El,” Dimitri says, earnest, loosening his hold on his chest. “Claude. Let me…”

They rearrange. It seems to be happening too quickly around him—he’s nerveless from the overstimulation, Dimitri’s sliding him off his chest and rubbing those incredible hands over his shoulders and legs as he wiggles vaguely, sprawled free on his back, and Edelgard has shed her underthings somewhere, shirt-tails teasing the tight little curve of her hips as she crawls up over him.

“There you are,” Claude murmurs, pretty far gone, letting a hand wander up her thigh, cupping her ass, and she doesn’t even look like she wants to smack him.

“Hush, you,” she says, and it’s almost _sweet._ She’s shining wet, she’s glorious. He hangs his tongue over his lip and cranes his head up like a cunt-drunk fool, and she reaches down for a fistful of his hair as she settles. She’s on the salty side, and practically dripping already, and has this tiny little tucked-away clit that he could roll his tongue around for _hours._ “Oh, that’s,” she says with soft gasp. “I can feel your beard.”

He laughs into her cunt, merry and bright, and wiggles under her, and she grinds down in answer, jerking her hips like she knows _exactly_ what she needs. He clings to her legs, her hips, her ass, feeling her move above him—and then the mattress dips and big warm hands wander up his legs. He jerks his own hips in answer, inviting.

One of Dimitri’s wet fingers slides home, careful, _deep_ , and Claude moans, muffled, heedless. It nudges the plug, and there’s this terrifying, fabulous sensation as the two rub against each other, and he swears open-mouthed as Edelgard rides his face. Dimitri’s almost painfully careful, the gentlest little twists and strokes as he coaxes him open, and he’s so turned on, so unguarded, that it’s _easy_ . Dimitri even has a second finger into him before Edelgard comes, gasping, with a sweet, almost melodic cry. Not _terribly_ loud, but piercing. Gorgeous.

And she tightens her hand in his hair, so he’ll take that as _don’t slow down._ Dimitri curls warm and heavy between his legs as he fingers him, and Edelgard digs her feet into his shoulders, and—fuck, it’s so easy being between them right now, simple and bright, all the tiredness washed away, the hollow ache in his chest gone—

No need to worry about saying something embarrassing, not with the Emperor on his face. Safer that way.

* * *

Another orgasm, clenching around two of Dimitri’s big fingers with his tongue on his dick, and it’s wrenchingly intense in an entirely different way than the last one, and Claude is starting to make small shaky noises with every _breath_. Edelgard’s come all over his face a few times in a row—gods help him, he’s lost count, he’s so far gone. Dimitri cradles him, kisses him silly and all down the smears on his chin, as Edelgard makes her fourth mark, right on the nape of his neck. Edelgard gets up to do—something, and Claude has a brief moment of small terror about where his situational awareness has gone, and then Dimitri puts a cup of water in his face, which is quite a distraction.

Then he sees Edelgard, which is even more of a distraction, because she’s naked, finally, and it’s nice. Very nice. Especially her little pink nipples and the way her stomach is tight as hell. Far more important than the old scars stitched up her midline. She’s settling the straps of her harness, which is of _course_ imperial red. The leather looks like butter, custom-fit and nicely broken in, and it’s the kind where she can swap out dicks without taking it off.

Dimitri’s holding him tenderly, cradling his ass, one fingertip nudging the plug and making him gasp, and Edelgard crawls naked across the wreckage of the bed to kiss him. And manages to make naked crawling imperious somehow, because she’s _Edelgard_.

“Claude,” Dimitri says into his ear, still nudging the plug. “Shall I…”

He nods, makes muffled noises of _yes_ , wiggles his ass. _Still gonna need some work there, big guy_ , he’d say, but Edelgard’s too busy biting his lip. Her kisses are playful now, not nearly as methodical, like her thoroughly battened-down silly side is coming out, and it’s _good_. It’s good, he wants to play with her for hours, he’s moaning into her mouth as Dimitri works the plug out of him, leaving him achingly empty. And then has to peel away to reach for the oil.

Edelgard takes the chance to wrap him up, rake nails down his back, and she’s a silky-skinned little bundle of solid muscle, and he could bask in her skin-warmth forever. “Edie,” he murmurs into an open-mouthed kiss, then, without thought, “El.”

She makes a tiny noise in the back of her throat and slides one hand down to fold her fingers over his dick, like she wants to hold something close. “Careful,” she whispers. “If you want to play that game, I know _your_ name now.”

Dimitri comes back then, carrying the pot of slick like a sensible man, and covers him with welcome warmth before sliding two dripping fingers into his ass with ease. Claude makes a raw groan into Edelgard’s mouth, trembles between them. They’re all skin-on-skin, and she buries her fingers in him too, up front, and he feels like he’s floating between them, braced on his knees between their free arms, full of them. Dimitri’s opening, working him up to three. Edelgard’s exploring, pressing as deep as she can. He clutches her close with one arm, reaches back to grab Dimitri’s thigh with the other—fuck, he doesn’t want to let them go. Suddenly this close after all this time, and he wants to press them both in under his ribs and never let go.

“Get in me,” he manages, voice ragged. “Dimitri, I—need you.”

Dimitri’s wordless, just closes his mouth over the back of Claude’s neck, barely any teeth, like he’s _holding_ him, and then lets go just enough to nod.

Edelgard gives one more rub inside, making him groan, and pulls her fingers out. “I’ll be back,” she says, kissing Claude’s temple. “Just a moment.”

Claude clutches her until the very last moment, sags to his hands and knees with a nod, and Dimitri kisses down his spine as his hand moves inside him, spreading him further. “Come on,” Claude breathes, “please, come on, I’m ready, I want you…”

Finally, finally, his fingers pull out, just barely holding his rim open. He’s dimly aware that somewhere a few feet away, Edelgard is rummaging, choosing a dick, strapping it on, but then the hot head of Dimitri’s cock is nudging inside him and he’s too busy moaning to pay much attention.

Edelgard tosses a towel over. Dimitri catches it vaguely, crumples it in his right hand, and slides both arms around Claude’s chest, holding him close as he slides in. “Slowly,” Edelgard says, fumbling with her straps. “Wait, I want to see his face…”

Dimitri pauses, just there, half of Claude’s body weight in his arms and half of his dick in his ass, and Claude shakes and whines and tries to back onto him. It’s a nice stretch, even after his fingers, but it’s the depth that’s going to be like nothing else, it’s the depth he wants—

Edelgard is there, now, holding his head up gently by the hair so he can’t look away, and Dimitri slides one hand down over his belly to hold him as he thrusts home. Edelgard’s cool little hand on his cheek. Edelgard entranced as he groans like the wind’s been knocked out of him. The weight of Dimitri in his ass is _stunning_. Literally. About all Claude can do for a moment is reel there in his arms and shake. He doesn’t even have it in him to hide from Edelgard. Not even to try.

Then Edelgard looks to Dimitri, and they rearrange him, puppet-limp and impaled to the root—one big hand high on one thigh, lifting him, hands on his chest to steady him, his legs drifting off the bed—he cries out, gasping, as Dimitri thrusts, gravity driving him deep, his whole body jolting in their arms. He’s spread wide, front hole right where Edelgard can get at it, and she reaches down to rub his dick for a moment before dipping her fingers inside again, testing—

“Saints, El,” Dimitri says, ragged. “I can _feel_ you.”

“You’ll feel quite a bit more soon, I’d imagine,” she says, not entirely composed herself, and starts lining herself up. Claude, belatedly, tries to look down and see what she’s about to put in him—she kisses him instead, letting Dimitri take his whole weight with ease.

Something nudges at him.

It’s leather, he thinks dimly, from the texture, the give. Nicely slicked up. Dimitri gives another thrust, and he can barely think at all, and then Edelgard makes a hushing noise as she works in.

It’s _ribbed_. Twenty useless gods of heaven and earth, it’s _ribbed_. Claude lets his head sag back against Dimitri’s shoulder and almost screams as it slides home, drowning out Dimitri’s lower moan. On the fat side, not as huge as the living cock pulsing in his ass, but the texture—fucking hell—

Edelgard slides arms around him as she settles, as he’s floating between them stuffed mind-numbingly full, and he grabs at her back to claw up lines, moaning full-throated and babbling nonsense before either of them even moves.

Then Dimitri does move, one short thrust with a murmur of “so tight, Saints, Claude, El,” and that rubs along the ridges of Edelgard’s dick alongside it, and Claude wonders for a moment if he’s going to come just from that. He’s been close since Edelgard had been rubbing his tender spots, since Dimitri had split him open, and for the next few strokes they’re a sort of uncoordinated jostle, but then they figure out a rhythm. It’s not like they aren’t strong enough to move him with ease, lift him and drop him, and Dimitri meets him with a snap of his hips to hit the raw depth that’s making him howl, and Edelgard is doing some little shimmy that makes him see stars—

He practically trips over an orgasm, spasming helplessly, toes clawing at thin air, and they don’t even stop, just lean in to bite him, one on each side. He can’t pry his nails out of Edelgard’s back, and she just growls and fucks him harder. He can’t think, he can’t stop shouting, Dimitri’s blathering beautifully in his ear. “So handsome like this, thank you for letting us in, thank you for letting us love you, come for us, you feel amazing, Claude, I love you…”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Claude croaks, like he’s been punched in the stomach, and buries his face in Edelgard’s shoulder. He’s _trembling_. He doesn’t know how to keep hiding it. He doesn’t know if he needs to. “Dimitri you…big sap…”

Edelgard, for her part, just lets go of him with one hand for a moment, fumbles around, and then says, “Claude.”

She’s stilled. Dimitri’s still fucking his ass, jolting him between them, teeth wrapped around the back of Claude’s neck like there’s nothing left in his world but loving him. Though, of course, she’s still in him, those ridges driving him toe-curling mad on every stroke.

She’s holding the orb.

“Oh shit no,” Claude blurts, feeling a watery jolt of something between fear and arousal rush through him. “Don’t you dare, too much, crazy woman, that’s too much—”

“You calling for mercy?” she asks, tender, kissing his temple as he jolts in Dimitri’s grip.

Claude _whines_ , and tries to bite her ear, and swears up a storm, and doesn’t call mercy.

She shakes the orb into life, and it’s only then that Dimitri fully cottons on, makes some desperate noise against Claude’s skin. “ _El_ ,” he groans.

“Let it go,” she says sweetly into Claude’s ear. “Let it all go. We’ve got you.”

Then she slides the delightful maddening thing down between them, pressed _hard_ up against his dick by their tangled bodies.

He screams.

Edelgard gives an experimental roll of her hips, testing how much she can move without letting the orb slip away—which isn’t much, but it’s enough, given the ridges. Edelgard is also gasping like it’s doing nice things for her too. The thrum is spreading down her dick, even if faintly, and Dimitri groans and tightens his grip with a shudder.

Claude doesn’t stop screaming. Somewhere in there he shakes and spasms hard enough that they suck up another pair of marks. Then another. He’s whited out, can’t feel anything but searing pleasure.

 _El_ , he must have shouted, because she squeezes him close and answers, soft in his ear, “Khalid.”

It hits him full-body. Like somebody’s grabbed him by the heart and pulled him close. All of him, all those faraway dreams, dragged into this moment by the name he hasn’t heard in eight years, naked between them, aflame. He struggles, once, briefly, screams in two languages, and Dimitri’s hips speed up as his cock pulses inside him, and Claude comes so hard his vision goes dark.

* * *

About all Claude knows, for a time, is that he’s so fucked out that he can barely move his legs and any brush between them makes him yelp, and also that he can’t stand to not have all his limbs wrapped around somebody. Both somebodies. He buries his face in warm skin and shakes. Not crying, exactly, but it feels like things are cracking open all the way down.

Somebody is also stroking his hair and kissing the top of his head, tender as anything. His head feels empty, a vast clear quiet. Dimitri’s come is dripping down his bruised thigh, and somebody mops at it with a damp cloth.

“Bath soon,” Edelgard is saying. “I’ll see about ringing for some onion gratin. We’ll probably be hungry by the time it’s here, and it’ll keep warm in the crock until he’s ready to eat.”

A gurgle, maybe Dimitri’s stomach, but all he says is, “yes.” A soft kiss to his forehead, and for a moment, he blinks his eyes open to catch Dimitri’s face swimming golden in the light, smiling. “Sleep if you need to, Claude. We’ll be here.”

* * *

Claude doesn’t sleep, exactly, but dozes a time, in and out. Morning sun stretches to noon across the ruined sheets. He’s still naked, exhausted, warm from skin, cradled against Dimitri with one strong arm latched across his chest. Edelgard is stroking his hair, and has caught one of his hands to hold, fingers roaming around his archer’s calluses.

“…and it scares me,” Dimitri’s voice comes, drifting far away. “To think of him fighting for influence on his own, where I can’t help him. If something happens to him, after all of this, everything he’s done for us, I’d…”

“We can’t interfere in Almyran affairs.” Edelgard is quiet, resigned. “Or at least he’d probably talk us out of it. I’d imagine he can’t afford to look like Fódlan’s puppet.” A soft sigh. “Hell. I wish…I wish I could keep him by my side.” Her voice is very small. “Our sides. Bring a new future to Fódlan together.”

“I’d…hoped for that too. So much.” Dimitri’s voice is very soft, aching, and Claude fights every instinct he has and stays still, keeps his breathing quiet.

“Though you know, Dimitri,” Edelgard says, thoughtful, “he didn’t do it for us. Not like that.”

“No.” Quiet stretches. Dimitri’s hand moves, slow and careful like he’s trying not to wake him, to rest over Claude’s heart. “But neither did he do it selfishly. Not entirely. Mutually beneficial, isn’t that what he’d always say? It certainly doesn’t make me any less grateful.” He curls closer around him, like he’s decided Claude just belongs in his arms now—he certainly fits nicely—and kisses the top of his head. It’s so tender that Claude can’t help a shaky hitch in his breath.

Edelgard squeezes his hand and lifts it to rest against her cheek, kissing his knuckles just as tenderly. It’s even more dangerous from her, and he curls up, reflexive, vulnerability a sudden raw ache in his belly. Also it probably means they know he’s awake.

The dumbwaiter bell rings, and a faint waft of stewed onions and meat comes through the little door.

The exhausted haze is clearing, and everything seems terribly bright and real. Claude’s a soggy mess between his legs. Noon light pours through the gauze curtains, only slightly muted by the half-silvered glass of the windows, turning both the others ice-white. He picks his head up as Edelgard goes over to the dumbwaiter, reflexive—it’s not like the thing isn’t the biggest security risk of the ducal suite, there were years when he’d had it blocked off—

Dimitri’s hand smoothes over his back as he sits up, and some long tremor runs through him.

All these years he’s kept his cards close to his chest, and now, for no reason, he steers out over the uncharted desert?

The dumbwaiter is just food. No assassins leaping out of the wall. Edelgard comes back balancing a broad tray, three thick crocks of onion gratin soup along with a plate of hot jerky and tall glasses of chilled tea. She never had taken out her ponytail, though now it’s mussed, and her red harness is still strapped dickless around her hips; she’s put on a shirt, loose, covering the worst of her scars, and he recognizes after a moment that it’s his.

“When you’re ready,” she says, and pulls a side table closer to set down the tray. Dimitri reaches for the jerky, immediate and sheepish. Well, he’s a big boy, he gets hungry. Claude feels oddly hollow, and is trying to figure out whether it’s hunger or being empty after being stuffed so full or something else.

Dimitri keeps rubbing his shoulders, gentle. “How are you feeling?”

“Oh, I’m fabulous,” he says, without thinking. “I mean, godsdamn. Thought you were talking a big game, but you followed through.” He flashes Edelgard his best cheeky grin. And that—no, that doesn’t feel like lying. It _was_ good. Fuck, it was good. He isn’t sure what’s wrong.

“Well, thank you,” she says, with a little smile like he rarely sees, and hands him a glass of tea. “You were delightful. Truly.”

“Are you just saying that because you made me scream a lot,” Claude says, without making it a question, and sips. It’s honeyed and soothing. Almost too sweet, but he’ll take it right now. The honey feels like it sends sparks through him—okay, maybe he’s hungry.

“Not _only_ that, but yes, you do scream very nicely.” It’s so matter-of-fact that he almost blushes. Edelgard half-naked and relaxed enough to smile like that is definitely a thing he could get used to—

Except he can’t, now can he?

His stomach growls too, and Dimitri in turn hands him a piece of jerky, which Claude decides to take with his teeth. Edelgard tilts her head at that, like she’s intrigued by something, and Claude takes the time to chew and figure out the right angle. “I will,” he announces after swallowing, “get my own back if there’s a next time. You too, Princess. So if you have plans, be warned.”

“You say that as if it is a threat,” says Dimitri, so earnest. Gods, why does he have to _be_ like that?

“You can try,” says Edelgard, a touch prickly—and a touch flushed.

“Do you,” Dimitri says, “want to? Again? We have at least a few days in Derdriu, I think, I don’t know what you have planned…”

“Nothing I can’t cancel,” Claude says. He takes another sip and thinks. “Okay, one thing I can’t cancel, I won’t be able to get that guy on my calendar again for six months and I need to make sure he’ll play nice with Lorenz so half the tea trade doesn’t fall apart. Beyond that…”

A few days. Then he’ll be alone again. _Fuck._

Edelgard sighs, bowing her head. Adrestia’s high-maintenance, he knows, especially with all the changes she’s making. “I may be able to take more time. Perhaps even soon. I suppose it depends upon when you’re leaving. Though I should at least meet with Hubert and Ferdinand…”

“I could maybe stay a month,” Claude says, and he feels an ache in his chest as he says it, a prickle. “Hell, once I wrap up a few more things here, I’m not grounded, I could come to Enbarr. Though I admit, I’d love to take you both to the Daphnel countryside hot springs, you could use it. They’re very private,” he adds for Edelgard’s benefit—not like it isn’t even more of a concern for him.

“I’ll be needed in Faerghus for the spring revels in perhaps two weeks,” Dimitri says, distant in thought. “Though there’s no reason you couldn’t come…”

“Perhaps best if I didn’t,” Edelgard says delicately. “At least not publicly.”

“I just,” Claude says, throat tight. “Can’t linger through the summer. It’s my best chance to scope out the competition before the autumn round-up.” He takes a long drink of tea, but the tightness lingers. _Home_. Yesterday it had been a tremendous relief. Damn it, he _knew_ he’d be leaving all his connections in Fódlan, what does this change? Is that the only reason he’s off balance?

“If we’d taken this leap earlier,” Dimitri says, sliding a hand around Claude’s waist. “I know there’s nothing to gain from dwelling on it, but I…I feel like a fool. To only be doing this now. If we’d trusted you sooner—”

“You would have been a fool to trust me,” Claude cuts in, blunt. “I was some bastard who’d showed up out of nowhere a year ago. A _Riegan_ bastard, no less, we’re all scamps. I could have been anybody. Wanted anything. Like taking over Fódlan.” He’s suddenly acutely aware of his own nudity, of Dimitri’s hand on the bare cut of his hip, and he wants to pull away. His chest aches. “I can’t count on trust, Dimitri. There’s no reason to apologize.”

“I understand,” Edelgard says. “When I chose my path, I was alone. I never expected allies—”

“Bullshit,” Claude says, without heat. “You had Hubert.”

Edelgard blinks at him, startled into silence.

“Do you have _any_ idea what I’d have given for someone that loyal? For someone who’d back me no matter what, who thought I was worth following out the door, never mind to the ends of the earth? Who’d come for me if I needed them?”

Something cracks in her composure, and for a moment she looks so terribly scared, and he almost opens his mouth to apologize—and then she grabs him and hugs him tight to her chest. Buries her face in his shoulder. Squeezes him and rocks back and forth like she never wants to let go. His tea sloshes on the bed.

Dimitri lifts the glass from his hand, and he hears it clink on the tray.

Claude puts arms around Edelgard in return, almost hesitant. He’s almost never seen her this raw, and he takes a quiet guess at what he just did to her, and feels his gut go cold. “I’m glad you have him,” he says, a sideways apology. “Seriously.”

“I would come for you if I could,” she says, sharp and needy, into his shoulder.

He stops breathing. Just for a moment. The sky tilts.

“If I could lay your enemies to waste,” Dimitri says, and carefully wraps them both up, his arms long enough to latch around her shoulders and nestle Claude entirely between them. “If my lance could help cut your path. You need only say the word.”

“Guys,” Claude says, a little weakly. “I’m—I’m fine, come on…okay, no, you’re adorable, don’t squeeze me any harder.” Dimitri’s arms loosen entirely, nervous, and Edelgard makes what could only be described as a small hiss and grabs one of his wrists to pull him back into place. “That’s fine, yeah, that’s…” Edelgard’s so _small_ , and he buries his face in her shoulder, in his own shirt, and feels something run through him, head to toe, a bone-deep tremor of emotion. “Gods,” he croaks.

“Claude,” Dimitri says, “are you…are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” His voice sounds a bit strangled. “Just. You’re giving me feelings, it’s very rude.”

“Oh. Well.” Dimitri kisses his messy hair. “In this, perhaps, I am a barbarian.”

* * *

They hug for a long, long time, as Claude shakes dry-eyed, until he chirps vaguely for his freedom and they pry themselves apart. They eat their soup and jerky. They drink their iced tea.

The tangled ache in Claude’s chest is starting to ease, and he takes a moment in the washroom to mop himself up and stare at himself in the mirror. He has truly wild sex hair, even by his standards, practically sticking straight up like it had when he was younger and still figuring out how to manage it in the damn Fódlan humidity. His neck and collarbones are littered with hickeys, and he still looks startled, wide-eyed, undeniably wrecked. He looks _younger_ , he thinks vaguely, and fidgets for a moment with the lock that had been his boyhood braid, three years gone.

Maybe he’s just—less tired.

He comes back to find that they’ve shoved aside the mangled coverlet and piled up some pillows for comfort. Dimitri is sprawled with Edelgard tucked up under his arm, face buried in his chest, and he reaches out to him as he pads back to bed.

It’s not like those two can be together either, he thinks. Not officially. Stolen weekends, running in disguise. There’s too much bad blood between the Kingdom and the Empire, too many bodies strung on Fhirdiad’s ramparts in Adrestia’s name. Claude will just…have a longer trip. Less time. Since when had he expected anything to work perfectly?

The dagger he keeps under his displaced pillow is next to Edelgard’s on the nightstand.

Letting himself get in Dimitri’s reach is probably a mistake if he’d wanted to _do_ anything any time soon, but he can’t exactly bring himself to mind anymore, not when it means being hugged as close and tender as Edelgard had earlier.

“I have to earn my crown myself,” he says into the still-naked warmth of Dimitri’s chest, and Edelgard’s small hand slides over his shoulders, rubbing circles. “Can’t look any more compromised by Fódlan than I already am. You’re not wrong about that.”

Dimitri answers with a leg wrapped around his, a resigned and worried noise.

“Don’t you dare fail,” Edelgard says, like she can warp fate with a simple order, and hey, he’d take it.

“You’ll still be here when I’m done,” he says, low and firm, because why not try it too?

Edelgard buries her face between his shoulderblades for a moment, nails of one hand digging into his skin, because—well, of _course_ he isn’t supposed to know, she never talks about it, which probably isn’t her best decision but it’s certainly not her worst. “I will be,” she says, small and iron-firm, and either she’s delusional or she knows she’s got at least that much time—it had better be the second, damn it. He needs to make sure Lysithea’s in cahoots with her, whatever it is she’s doing with Hanneman…

Dimitri, oblivious, says quietly, “I will join them in my own time. Just as I promised you that night.” That particular way he says _them_. His ghosts. He does still hear them, he’d said once. Just…manageable.

“Good.” Claude slides his arms under him and squeezes, possessive. “Good.”

“Is there,” Dimitri asks, “something we _can_ do? So that you need not struggle alone?”

“Expand the Union,” Claude says, feeling his heart rattle hard under his ribs. “If you want to help me build my dream—start there. We’ll need to rename it, of course, can’t call it the _Fódlan_ Union if it grows, well, maybe it’ll have to be a different sort of alliance, given that half the collective legal promises don’t apply where there aren’t Crests, or assume entirely different structures, property, inheritance, that sort of thing, you _couldn’t_ use those laws back home—” He manages a deep breath, finally. “If I can win my crown, if I can bring Almyra to the table…”

“Yes,” says Dimitri, unhesitating. “Of course. I would ask such an alliance with Duscur as well, if they would accept it. An oath to stand with them as equals, in peace. It’s…well, there is only so much I can do, but…”

“I’d imagine Petra would be interested as well,” Edelgard says into Claude’s bare back. “And yes. That would be quite radical, wouldn’t it?”

Claude laughs, perhaps softly, but it’s bubbling from somewhere deep in his heart. “Fuck, I love how easily I can sell you on something just because it’s radical.”

The terrifying Flame Emperor of the Revolution huffs in annoyance and pinches Claude’s butt. _Hard._

“Ow!” he says, indignant. “What. It’s true.”

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” she mutters.

“Oh, really.” He wiggles a little in Dimitri’s arms. “Do tell me—no, wait, let me guess. Since the day we met?”

“Don’t get too full of yourself, Your Highness,” Edelgard says.

Dimitri twitches reflexively. Claude opens his mouth to point out that Almyran titles are _entirely_ different, but you know what, screw it, it’s cute, he deserves it. Maybe someday she’ll call him _your Majesty_ while making him scream, that would be something, wouldn’t it? Assuming—fuck, everything about the future is so uncertain—

He could do that to Dimitri _today_ , he thinks, assuming they’re not still worn out by evening. Well, _he_ might not want anything to touch his dick until tomorrow, but that won’t stop him from strapping it on and wrecking a king. Maybe he’ll show Edelgard just what the glass cock can do to a man.

They have the time they have. It will have to be enough.

Claude squirms up to take that handsome face in both his hands and kiss him, and Dimitri answers with a soft hum of contentment, and Edelgard slides up along his back to nuzzle the nape of his neck.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he says when he finally lets him go. “Both of you.”

“Yes,” says Dimitri.

“We’ll be there when the time comes.” Edelgard’s voice is quiet near his ear, like she knows how brittle a promise that is, and gods, he’ll hold _her_ to that especially.

Dimitri kisses his forehead, and it feels like adoration. “And should you need us.”

**Author's Note:**

> The first meeting to discuss the expansion (and renaming) of the Fódlan Union was strangely wrought with sexual tension, much to the bewilderment of Transitional Ducal Minister Lorenz Hellman Gloucester. Her Majesty Petra Macneary, on the other hand, had a quite accurate guess about the situation, though kept her own council as always. And Representative Dedue Molinaro, of course, knew everything.
> 
> (Also because it’s been asked, Hilda’s fine! And probably happily making Marianne a lot of jewelry and petting her dumb fluffy Persian cats. She and Claude have probably been in cahoots, but they didn’t get backed into a corner in Derdriu together so he doesn’t realize quite how ride or die she is, because sometimes he’s a bit dense like that.)
> 
> I [tweet](https://twitter.com/letterblade).


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